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> From a certain perspective, the Culture is not all that different from Star Trek’s Borg. The difference is that Banks tricks the reader into, in effect, sympa
by bawolff 3y ago
> From a certain perspective, the Culture is not all that different from Star Trek’s Borg. The difference is that Banks tricks the reader into, in effect, sympathizing with the Borg.
Its interesting - star trek ds9 actually kind of makes that point in the marquis plot line https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv3Ex5kG2go https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv3Ex5kG2go
- arethuza 3y agoBut the Culture doesn't stop individuals or groups leaving - if anything it seems to support it?
- WJW 3y agoNor does the Culture force individuals or groups into joining, though it is not above meddling in the culture (heh) of other populations to make them (say) stop genociding each other. FWIW, Banks himself stated that exploring how a "perfect" utopia would deal with less enlightened neighbors is a core theme of the series. It's all good and well to provide perfect harmony for all your citizens, but can you truly be said to be "good" if you allow your neighboring civilizations to live in squalor? On the other hand, meddling in the affairs of others has many ethical quandaries as well. Exploring these is what the culture series is all about.
- edgyquant 3y agoThe first book (consider Phlebus) does the opposite. It follows an enemy of the culture and has you believe the culture is just the borg (an empire of machines.). It’s only through the philosophical debates do you come to see the culture as the utopia it is.
- datameta 3y agoThe culture does not forcefully assimilate however, and they add the cultural proclivities of any new member as opposed to breaking it down into its elements to be absorbed and reconstructed.
- ianburrell 3y agoAlso, the Culture is not a hive mind. All the people and Minds are individuals. They could form a hive mind, but wouldn't because then they would ascend. Culture exists by not ascending.
- datameta 3y agoRight, and the books mention how the Culture is a bit long in the tooth to Sublime, seeing other younger civs speed-run toward this extradimensional afterlife.
- d1sxeyes 3y agoThe article covers this. It highlights how Contact is specifically tasked with shaping and forming the development of other species over millenia to 'assimilate' them. By the time a species is ready to be 'assimilated', no force is needed.
- datameta 3y agoHmm, good point! However, I would argue that such nudges are toward overall peace with a neighbor, rather than total civilation subjugation like with the Borg.
- d1sxeyes 3y agoThat is a fair argument if you consider the Culture to be a collection of civilisations living in harmony, but if the Culture is rather a single entity which supplants the existing civilisation and gradually replaces all of the unique features of the existing civilisation, is it still fairly classifiable as “peace with a neighbour”? It’s a tough question and I don’t profess to know the answer, but for me I think I would argue that you can no longer call them a “neighbour” if they’re no longer separately identifiable as “not the Culture”.
- mr_toad 3y agoIn Excession, and some of the other novels Banks contrasts the Culture with a “hegemonising swarm”, which is essentially a cancerous version of the Culture (or similar civilisation). Also there are divergent factions in the Culture, dubbed the Ulterior.